Jeremiah 15:12

THE MESSAGE

"O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances against the iron juggernaut from the north? In punishment for your sins, I'm giving away everything you've got, giving it away for nothing. I'll make you slaves to your enemies in a strange and far-off land. My anger is blazing and fierce, burning in hot judgment against you."

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Can anyone smash iron,iron from the north, or bronze?

Hebrew Names Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

King James Version
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

English Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

New American Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

New Century Version
No one can smash a piece of iron or bronze that comes from the north.

Amplified Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, The iron from the north, or bronze?

World English Bible
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Shall the yron breake the yron, and the brasse that commeth from the North?

Legacy Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron,Iron from the north, or bronze?

Berean Standard Bible
Can anyone smash iron-iron from the north-or bronze?

Contemporary English Version
The Lord told me to say: People of Judah, just as you can't break iron mixed with bronze, you can't defeat the enemies that will attack from the north.

Complete Jewish Bible
"Can iron break iron and bronze from the north?

Darby Translation
Will iron break? iron from the north? and bronze?

Easy-to-Read Version
"Jeremiah, you know that no one can shatter a piece of iron. I mean the kind of iron that is from the north. And no one can shatter a piece of bronze either.

George Lamsa Translation
For he is hard as iron and as brass.

Good News Translation
(No one can break iron, especially the iron from the north that is mixed with bronze.)

Lexham English Bible
Can anyone break iron, iron from the north, or bronze?

Literal Translation
Can one break iron, iron or bronze from the north?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Doth one yron hurte another, or one metall that cometh from the north, another?

American Standard Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Bible in Basic English
Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Can iron break iron from the north and brass?

King James Version (1611)
Shall yron breake the Northren yron, and the steele?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Doth one iron hurt another? or one metall that commeth from the north another?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Will iron be known? whereas thy strength is a brazen covering.

English Revised Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether yrun and metal schal be ioyned bi pees to irun fro the north?

Update Bible Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and bronze?

Webster's Bible Translation
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

New English Translation
Can you people who are like iron and bronze break that iron fist from the north?

New King James Version
Can anyone break iron, The northern iron and the bronze?

New Living Translation
Can a man break a bar of iron from the north, or a bar of bronze?

New Life Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, iron from the north, or brass?

New Revised Standard
Can iron and bronze break iron from the north?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Shall iron crush the iron from the North and the bronze?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass?

Revised Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

Young's Literal Translation
Doth one break iron -- northern iron, and brass?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

Contextual Overview

¹⁰Unlucky mother—that you had me as a son, given the unhappy job of indicting the whole country! I've never hurt or harmed a soul, and yet everyone is out to get me. But, God knows, I've done everything I could to help them, prayed for them and against their enemies. I've always been on their side, trying to stave off disaster. God knows how I've tried! ¹²"O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances against the iron juggernaut from the north? In punishment for your sins, I'm giving away everything you've got, giving it away for nothing. I'll make you slaves to your enemies in a strange and far-off land. My anger is blazing and fierce, burning in hot judgment against you."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Shall iron: Jeremiah 1:18, Jeremiah 1:19, Jeremiah 21:4, Jeremiah 21:5, Job 40:9, Isaiah 45:9, Habakkuk 1:5-10

Reciprocal: Daniel 2:40 - forasmuch 1 John 5:15 - if

Cross-References

Genesis 2:21
God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.

Genesis 15:5
Then he took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"

Genesis 15:8
Abram said, "Master God , how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?"

Genesis 15:9
God said, "Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon."

Genesis 15:13
God said to Abram, "Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they'll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years. Then I'll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder. But not you; you'll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death. Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites."

1 Samuel 26:12
David took the spear and water jug that were right beside Saul's head, and they slipped away. Not a soul saw. Not a soul knew. No one woke up! They all slept through the whole thing. A blanket of deep sleep from God had fallen on them.

Job 33:15
"In a dream, for instance, a vision at night, when men and women are deep in sleep, fast asleep in their beds— God opens their ears and impresses them with warnings To turn them back from something bad they're planning, from some reckless choice, And keep them from an early grave, from the river of no return.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?] Can iron break iron, especially that which comes from the north, which was harder than the common iron; or steel, the hardest of all? though the Jews were hard as iron, they could not prevail against and overcome Jeremiah, who was made an iron pillar and brasen walls against them, Jeremiah 1:18, and so these words are spoken for his comfort and encouragement: or they may respect the Jews and the Chaldeans; and the sense be, that the Jews, as mighty and as strong as they fancied themselves to be, and boasted that they were, they could not find themselves a match for the Chaldean army, which came out of the north; and may be said to be as hard as the northern iron, which came from the Chalybes, a people in the north, near Pontus, from whom steel has its name in the Latin tongue; and this sense agrees with what follows.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The steel - “brass,” i. e., bronze. By the “iron” is meant Jeremiah’s intercession; but this cannot alter the divine purpose to send Judah into exile, which is firm as steel and brass. For “brass” see Exodus 25:3 note. The alloy of copper and zinc now called brass was entirely unknown to the ancients.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 15:12. Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? — Shall our weak forces be able to oppose and overcome the powers of the Chaldeans? נחשת nechasheth, which we here translate steel, property signifies brass or copper united with tin, which gives it much hardness, and enables it to bear a good edge.